Those who survived
by orlha
Summary: The Doctor was never alone. He thought he was, he thought he had searched hard enough but he was wrong. The three of them had survived in the most bizarre way (which they have yet to figure out) only to find out the war had ended without them. Would they ever find out what happened and is any other survivors?
1. Chapter 1

Things to note:

1) This has a lot of "OCs" and lots of Easter egg characters (only if you read/watch the comic/novels or Classic Who)

2) This will be based _loosely_ on the TV episodes.

3) I always wondered why those fanfictions don't have the Gallifreyans speak more gallifreyan. Wouldn't you be more comfortable with your mother tongue? So here's me, trying to be a bittttttt more realistic.

4) I don't think the Doctor would be with anyone. I don't plan to, but sometimes my characters write it themselves. So I'll just wing it. If it happens it happens, but for now. No.

Gallifreyan: "**Hello**."

Telepathy: '_Hello.'_

There are spoilers especially in my author's note. Anyway, enjoy!

-x-x-x-x-x-x-

They clutched tightly onto the railings as the TARDIS trembled and shook.

"**Navi! Report!**" The tall man yelled as he struggled to push several buttons while trying to hold himself steady.

**"****I don't know what happened, Luton! The HADS kicked in and she's trying to move to somewhere safe."**

**"****Bloody HADS. I told you take it offline**_,_" the lean man muttered as he pulled the Zigzag plotter. "**Zigzag plotter activated."**

**"****Friction Defibrillator activated -"**

**"****Inertial brakes activated at 40%-"**

**"****Vortex Spinners turned off. Turning on Gyroscopic stablisers."**

The four of them pulled and pushed the levers, calling out as they did and with every cog in the clockwork, the Tardis' jerking began to smooth out.

**"****About bloody time. Hold on a little longer. Holding steady at 50%. Braking."** Luton patted the console, the TARDIS jerked again. With the combined efforts of the four pilots, the TARDIS began to stabilise and with a shudder, it landed heavily.

**"****78% nitrogen, 20% Oxygen, 0.9% Carbon dioxide. Temperature is 21 degrees Celsius outside," **the lean man read off the screen. **"Sounds like Earth. All the turbulence just to land on Earth?" **

Navi leaned over, looking at the screen. **"51****st**** century, America, New New Texas! New Earth. Not Earth, Chersyl."** She said poking the lean man in the chest.

**"****Earth, New Earth. Still apes regardless."**

**"****Well, now that we know where and when we are. Let's repair and return to Gallifrey to-" **Luton tapped the console table. **"5 minutes after we left just to be on the safe side."**

**"****That's assuming we can get the parts to fix it."** Navi said. Pulling another screen down, she scanned the inner workings of the TARDIS. Tugging her ponytail absentmindedly, she inspected the wires under the console with her sonic probe. "**The helmic regulator is gone and much of the battery supply as well. If you can get some ionized alkali metal, I should be able to rebuild that part."**

Luton sighed. "**Chersyl, stay with Navi and help with fixing the Tardis, Anestes and I will go and find us some parts." **

A stocky man slipped a large gun into his pocket before following Luton out of the Tardis. He paused at the door before turning to Chersyl. "**Don't forget to deadlock the door**_."_

Chersyl nodded, well aware of how prized Tardises were.

**"****At least the Chameleon circuit is still working. But the Arton energy convertor isn't working right,"** she brushed her black hair off her hair as she leaned down to blow some of her regeneration energy onto the dying circuits. "**Check the circuits under the console-"** She looked up to find Chersyl staring at the screen. "**What? What's wrong?"**

"**It's not New Earth."** He clapped his mouth in horror. "**All the turbulence- **"

"**It's the parallel world."** Chersyl pushed the buttons in hopes that he read the screen wrong –again. No, it was most definitely the parallel world. That was why there had been so much shaking that even 4 pilots have difficulty stabilizing. The doors between parallel worlds had been closed for almost four hundred years when the Time war begun. How had they slipped through? Or the better question was if they could slip through, could they even return? Did anything slip out with them? Would anything slip out with them if they tried to return? Chersyl shook the questions out of his mind as he began to formulate a course of action – plan A, plan B, plan C. They'll need a backup plan should there be daleks too. There are daleks too in the parallel world. He remembered vaguely. All the time spent in war with the daleks had made much of the stuff in learn in school vague, the essentials like surviving had been pushed in front rather than whether there were daleks in parallel worlds. Especially when the parallel was _supposed_ to have been sealed off.

"**That can't be right?"** Navi squinted at the screen over Chersyl's shoulder. "**They closed the parallel worlds awhile back. How did we get here?"** Chersyl moved aside to allow Navi to read the screen as well. **"We didn't do anything special. We piloted the Tardis through some turbulence. That was it!"** She pulled up the logs and scanned them through. Nothing. The HADS had activated and it had been due to the dalek's beam that triggered it but it did not explain how they even gone to the parallel world. She had programmed the Tardis to phase 3 seconds out of sync before returning when HADS was triggered. That was exactly what the logs reported too. She pulled up her programming. She was class 3 of the Durm – the most prestigious Engineering group in Gallifery's academy. She was the 3rd best of her century's class in programming, piloting and all things related to Tardis mechanics. Her Tardis was also known to have her own special designs that were supposed to have surpassed the Type 103 TT capsules.

**"****My programming is flawless,"** she said, returning Chersyl's silent look. **"HADS activated at coordinates 33392/0134by30,034/red, 72431/231, Tardis moved into temporal shift for 3 secs. Temporal shift deactivated at Coordinates 33392/0134by600,030/red, 72431/200. There was no mistake. The returning coordinates is correct after factoring in the 3 secs." **She pulled the logs to Chersyl. **"Read it and tell me if you see a mistake."**

There was no mistake. Chersyl knew there was no mistake. She had piloted, programmed, fixed this Tardis so many times over the 400 years they had fought together. Sure she was not perfect, but she never made such a large mistake. There might be the first times for everything, but it was hard to imagine she would have gotten something so fundamentally basic after more than 800 years of TT capsule engineering and programming. Something had happened. Chersyl could and would bet all his remaining regenerations on that. Something that was completely out of their hands had happened and he will get to the bottom of this.

**"****What caused this to happen?!"** Chersyl flung his hand towards the door – towards the parallel universe. **"Do you even remember how to return back to our world?"** He asked, grimacing mentally at his tone. If anyone could open the portal to the parallel and back, it would be Navi. She probably was even part of the team that had created the mechanism to prevent parallel and alternate dimension travelling. He hadn't meant for it to sound so harsh. **"-Because I don't really remember it anymore. Let's get the facts right. 1. We're in a parallel universe. 2. No idea how we got here. 3. No programming fault. 4. No mention of a change in universe in the logs. "** He paced back and forth, ruffling his blond hair in irritation at the lack of information. **"It has to do with the HADS. It seems only plausible, but the programming is right. Logically there would be a fault in the programming. However, even if there was a fault in the programming, the most that would have happened is us crashing and not landing in a parallel universe. They sealed the parallel universes off. Nothing should be able to overwrite it."**

**"****Chersyl- If we could slip out-"**Navi interrupted, pulling his pacing to a stop. **"Chersyl-"**

"**Could anything have slipped out as well?" **Navi turned to Chersyl in horror.

'_Luton! Anestes?!_' Chesryl called out, sending his mind far out as far as he could. They were there, just outside of his range. Between him and Navi, he was the better telepath; there was no dispute about that.

**"****Luton. Anestes. Come in."** Navi called urgently over the comms. She sonicked the comms to boost it. Nothing. Either they were still too far from the communication's range or they were busy.

Meanwhile Chersyl had scampered out, his long legs covering grounds quickly as he sent his mind out searching for them.

_'__Focus on fixing the Tardis. Be ready for exiting when we return._' Chersyl instructed Navi as he scoured the city before him. Luton was also capable of long distant messages. Surely he would have caught on their frantic searching for them. Chersyl sniffed the air, following their scent. Pulling the sonic probe out, he began searching for alien activity, before facepalming himself. _Alien activity? Really, Chersyl. _He mumbled to himself before changing the settings. Searching for other time lords activities was hardly _alien_ activity. He had barely finished setting his sonic probe settings when he felt a wave of regeneration energy. Chersyl could faintly hear Navi calling out in horror in the back of his mind as he hurried over towards the energy.

'_Luton! Anestes!_' he called out again. Neither responded. Was in Daleks? Had Daleks followed them?

"**Luton! Anestes!**" He called out again, this time through the comms. He sonicked the communications, hoping to boost it a little more than it already had been. **"Luton! Anestes!"** The sound of his hearts beating in his ears seemed to swallow all his other mental capacity as his feet crunched through the gravelly ground.

**"****Chesryl-!"**

He half-spun to the voice, his mind taking in the male brunette – Luton, his timelord senses affirming his quick judgement, that was lying on the ground surrounded by scrap metal. Just several metres ahead of him was Anestes fending off metal. Not daleks. They didn't look like daleks. Luton had used his regeneration energy to destroy the metal things around him.

**"****Grab Luton and get out of here. They're Skaro degradations. We can't fight them with these guns."**

Chesryl turned around, half skidding towards Luton. Heaving Luton onto his shoulders, he pulled out his sword. Skaro degradations. They had been fortunate enough to meet very few of these and always in space combat. There was nothing the four of them piloting the Tardis that could beat them. Nightmare child, the Horde of Travesties even the armies of Meanwhiles and Neverweres were not a match for them. How else could they have lasted the frontlines for 400 years? The Tardis couldn't come to their rescue because it was still being repaired. Even if they could, even if they had the power to come right here and right now, the damage from one shot of a Battle Tardis would destroy the whole city. Chesryl did a rough mental calculation. This city would have alone a million over people.

_But they're Skaro degradations._

The small whisper in the back of his head said. What he'd give to have Arsus here now to burn everything through or even the renegade. Nothing they can't handle, nothing he can't handle, Chersyl breathed gasped, his lungs were burning as his legs sprinted towards the Tardis. There was no hope for Anestes. He would be killed before he would be even able to regenerate. Anestes must have bought time for Luton to complete his regeneration and then known there was no hope of saving him but there was still hope for Luton.

'_Good luck Chesryl, Luton. Goodbye.'_

He heard Anestes as the large flash of regeneration energy went out then cut short before it could complete.

'_Navi. Tell me some good news!' _

_'__The Tardis is prepped and ready._'

That was way too quick. How did she fix it? Chesryl slammed the doors behind him. Quickly dropping Luton to the side, he made his way to the console. Navi was already beginning the take off process, darting around the console, pulling the levers and pressing the buttons.

**"****We have one shot at this, so let me do this,"** Navi said before Chesryl could take his usual position. There was a deep frown marring her face, a frown of concentration as she calculated the coordinates, velocity and angle to what Chesryl could not deduce. He flickered his attention to both screens, neither was telling him anything much.

The Tardis shuddered, shaking side to side. It was a jerky flight, jerkier than he had ever experienced even when she had one-manned an eight man Tardis. The shuddering did not stop her; Navi gripped the railings, even using the off balance to aid her movement from corner to corner, side to side. Then pulling her sonic screwdriver out, she beamed it at the Tardis just as it jerked violently. Numbers began pouring down the screen. Too many numbers for him to begin to understand what it was counting. They were still moving in time or space or whatever Navi had sent them through – flying if Chesryl would hazard a guess. As the movement of the Tardis began to lull into a slow floaty movement reminiscent of them hovering in space, the numbers began to slow down as well.

**"****Co-Coordinates checks please,"** Navi called out weakly from the bottom of the stairs. The jerking had caused her to hit the ceiling hard and tumble down the stairs since unlike Chesryl and Luton, she had not been holding onto a railing.

"**33392/0034by1000,030/arrow, 72431/200." **Chesryl paused. ** "One hundred years, four months, thirteen days, eighteen hours since we left. But we're back on the same universe!"**

**"****We can jump back again," **Navi smiled. **"Just need the ionized alkali metal to fix the helmic regulator."**

**"****You mean you didn't get it fix? How on earth did you even manage the jump?" **Chesryl stared at her in amazement.

**"****Compensated. I only had to get us through the gap before it closed. Didn't matter where we landed as long as we were in the correct universe."** Navi pressed her hand at her forehead. **"Didn't have the energy though."**

She grinned, letting her hand as she healed her bleeding forehead. **"Sort of blew on it until it was charged enough. Wasn't sure-"**

**"****You used your regeneration energy?"** Luton exclaimed. He was still finding his feet after his regeneration.

**"****Can't be helped! Couldn't let Anestes die in vain."** Navi stood up. Pushing the buttons and adjusting the timing, she stared at the console, refusing to meet any of their stares. **"Don't tell me you wouldn't have done the same, because I know you two would have as well."**

She looked at them carefully, knowing they agreed. "After this war ends, when this war ends, let's all go to a beach," she smiled as she pulled the engine release lever.

**"****Agr-"**

The Tardis jerked, the alarms sounded this time.

**"****That can't be right."**

**"****No it can't." **

**"****Luton- Turn on the inertial regulator. I'll try an earlier time."**

Navi pulled the lever again and the Tardis jerked again. **"No, no, no! Why would you work!?" **She swore as she kicked the console table. Pushing Luton aside, she adjusted the inertial regulator again and changed the timing. Over again and again. "**It's time-locked. All of it," **she whispered finally to the duo that stared had been staring at her silently for what was probably over half an hour.

**"****How?"**

**"****More like why?"**

Luton and Chesryl begun to pace the floor, each trying to come up with probable reasoning, each reasoning sounding more and more ridiculous than the other.

**"****There's no sound,"** Navi whispered. She looked up at them from her spot on the floor by the bench. **"No sounds but the three of us."**

That was when they realized that silence was more frightening and deafening than those loud, raucous conversations that were always happening in the back of their minds. While they had always cherished the short bouts pauses in the ever-present noise, none of them had ever imagined a time where there was an absence in the noise that was part of the Time Lord consciousness.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-

It was six months since then; drifting in space, no aim, no goal, nowhere to go. They had coped with it differently. Chesryl had taken to his books and the endless library that he had joked constantly about never having time to read it. Now it was like it was all he had left. Luton joined him occasionally, penning his own thoughts into the book of _Those who survived_ that Chesryl had started. Perhaps it was Luton that took it the best among the three. Without Luton's telepathic chatter, Chesryl might have fallen apart. Navi retreated into herself, never speaking a single word or even uttering a single syllable. Her eyes were vacant whenever Luton tried to get her to speak to him. She drove herself into fixing the Tardis then when it was fixed, she began upgrading it to the point where neither Luton nor Chesryl could even begin to understand what the upgrades were.

The Tardis would hum gently as though comforting her passengers and while Navi seemed to take a certain comfort in it, Chesryl and Luton simply wrote it off as Tardis' sounds. Type 94 war Tardis weren't supposed to have a telepathic relationship with its passengers or crew.

**"****Luton,"** Chesryl begun. He looked up from his book to the other time lord sitting on the other side of the table. He realized over the three months that this regeneration of Luton had an odd sense of fashion, he liked to wear his hair braided and plaits all over. Who in the right mind wears braided hair? Chesryl had found himself questioning that every time he saw the braid. **"What do you think of Navi?"**

Luton arched an eyebrow at him. **"Of Navi?" **Luton repeated. **"In what context are you asking this question?"**

**"****I- I mean. Navi's taking it really badly. I mean-" **Chesryl pursed his lips, trying to put his thoughts into real constructed sentences.

**"****I think we're all having it bad. It's just a difference in how we show it. There's you who I doubt have slept for over an hour for the last six weeks. While you seem to act normal, you look like terrible. There's me. I dream of Anestes every time I sleep. I ask myself, why did he die for? Did we do the right thing? There wasn't much of a choice then. The choice of a million lives and twenty Skaro's degradations or the death of Anestes and the survival of us three. What happened to the Skaro's degradations? What is going happen to that parallel universe? These questions hound me. Sometimes I wake up and say, we made the best decision we saw at that point of time. It's not like we can go back and change it. The gap's closed."** Luton closed his eyes, his knuckles turning white as he clasped them together. **"Then we have Navi who is at least honest about how she's taking it and there's nothing wrong with that."**

The Tardis jerked horribly. It was the first real movement they felt since they arrived back into this dimension.

**"****Navi-"** Luton muttered, hurrying out of the library.

Chesryl turned to the screens as they entered the console room. Navi was missing but the door to the Tardis was wide open.

**"****She jumped- I can't move the Tardis. She locked it down for the next –"** The Tardis jerked, slamming the doors shut. The levers activated itself into a jump back to the vortex.

**"****What are you doing!?"** Luton rushed to the console, trying to reverse it.

**"****It's a flight delay. To go into the vortex after she jumped. It's set on random."**

**"****Why did she do that?"**

**"****That was what I was trying to tell you."** Chesryl sunk into the pilot's seat, grasping his head with his hands.** "Navi was going crazy. She wasn't being honest. She wasn't being honest at all."**

-x-x-x-x-x-x-

Doctor had just sent Donna back home. 'Quality time' she insisted on having. He did promise to pick her up in a week. A week of her time specifically, which meant very little to him. He supposed he would have to go back soon, it's been almost 3 months of travelling alone for him and he was almightily bored. He would have to be darn careful never to tell Donna how much he missed her big mouth or he would never hear the end of it or ever see her mouth closing that is.

"Should fetch her right after this cup of tea," he muttered. His feet were dangling out of the Tardis that was suspended just above the jungle as he watched the birds fly over. A time of not many men and no air traffic if you excluded the birds. So peaceful and silent. That was until the Tardis jerked heavily.

"What? What?" he called out, gripping onto the Tardis just as he was about to slide off.

Something blue was falling down into the jungle beneath him – apart from his tea cup.

"Was that- Is that-" Pulling out his glasses, he stared at it, looking up into the blue sky and down at his wrist watch before running back to the console table. "What's a person doing in mid-air!?"

Sure he had bumped into heaps of things. He never said he was the best driver. Okay. He might have said it a few times for the hell of it, but he didn't really think he was never the best driver. Anyway, no matter how bad a driver he was, he never actually hit anything before. He had landed in front of objects and crashed into them, but when you're miles up high in the sky stationery, you don't actually think anything is going to crash into you. Especially not when you're in the ancient civilization and they don't even know what metal is yet. Where and how did that person come from?

"I was just trying to enjoy my tea!" he muttered, steering the Tardis to catch the person.

Nope. Still a terrible driver. He phased out a moment too late, missing the person by a whole minute.

"Blimey!" He looked down and ran to re-adjust the landing where he thought he saw the person landed. It wouldn't be a nice sight to see, but oh the need for answers. He took his sonic screwdriver out, searching for something. He wasn't very sure what he was searching for to be honest. All he knew it was a person and it was wearing something blue. As he stood there scratching his head in puzzlement, he was struck by a very familiar sensation from behind him. It was a glow, golden-orangey sort of glow that washed over him like a wave. The glow intensified and though it felt like it was burning his eyes, the Doctor found he couldn't or rather didn't want to look away. The person was regenerating. A time lord was regenerating! Another time lord had survived!

The glow faded and in its place was a slim, lithely build female with the hair as dark as night. The Doctor hesitated for a moment, his eagerness to approach and the uncertainty whether it was okay to approach tore at him before he finally relented and knelt beside her. He brushed her hair away before lightly patting her cheeks. It was a few moments before her eyes opened. Her pale blue eyes darting from side to side.

"Are you okay?" He asked, helping her up to a sitting position.

**"****Where-?"** She looked at him then looked around. She pulled his wristwatch up, reading it before finally sticking a tongue out. Was she measuring the time with her tongue like he liked to too? He never realized how odd he looked doing it. **"100 000BC, Earth. How long was I out?"**

She stumbled as she tried to walk.

**"****You're still cooking, I'm afraid,"** the Doctor replied slowly. It had been a long time since he had spoken Gallifreyan. He felt somewhat comforted by the musical sounds of it and somewhat intimidated on speaking it knowing he was badly out of practice.

**"****Cooking?"**

**"****You regenerated."**

She bent down, at last realizing it. **"Oooh. Longer legs. These shoes are a bit big now." **She said and chucked them aside. She frowned at him, tilting her head side to side. **"I don't think I know you. Do I know you?"**

The doctor chuckled, catching her again as she tripped over her feet yet again on the way back to his Tardis. **"You sort of fell out of the sky. Quite literally in fact. I'm the Doctor, in any case."**

**"****The Doctor! I remember you! Renegade! Oncoming Storm! Bringer of Darkness!"** She spun around, calling out gaily.

**"****I never thought I'd actually meet you in person!"**She shook his hand excitedly with a large smile on her face. She was very happy to meet him though why she wasn't quite certain.

**"****I'm-"** She frowned. **"I'm – What's my name?"**

He quirked an eyebrow at her sceptically. Well amnesia was one of the possible temporary side-effects from regeneration. He too had suffered from it before.

**"****It's at the tip of my tongue. Na- something."**

**"****Nedre? Nynde? New? Number? Nature?" **

**"****No, no, no, no."**

**"****Maybe it's No," **he grinned. **"Well here's my Tardis. I suppose we can do some scans in the medbay while I figure how you dropped out of the sky."**

**"****Oh a type 40." **She circled around the console table, her slim hands lightly touching the rim as she did.** "Haven't seen one in a long while. In a museum yes. Didn't they recall all type 40s?"**

He grimaced slightly before quickly deflecting the question. **"How could you tell from a glance?" **He hadn't met many Gallifreyans who could tell it at a glance.

**"****Well the positioning! It's a six man Tardis. Telepathic circuits. Your chameleon circuit's spoilt. I could fix it if you like."**

**"****I sort of like it looking like this." **He gestured vaguely around. It was always the same question when he met someone who could fix the Tardis. Fix the Tardis! She must have been a mechanic. How did she survive the war? How did she get out?

**"****I could fix it and program it to stay it this way until otherwise," **she smiled cheekily. **"It's always nice to have the option there than to not have it altogether."**

**"****Medbay first! Then we'll talk about fixing the Tardis later. I do prefer to fix the Tardis on my own. What do you remember anyway? Do you remember your name yet?"**

**"****Here and there," **She motioned in the universal sign of somewhere there vaguely. **"But really? You call that fixing the Tardis? The wires are just dangling out there like that! Even if it's below the console panel, it's not good for the Tardis to have it left that way."**

The Tardis hummed with agreement. "**See! She agrees!" **The girl pointed, laughing before allowing the Doctor to drag her into the med bay.

**"****What's this, pick on the doctor day? Where's your Tardis? I'm assuming that's where you dropped out from."**

She hummed as she thought.**"Good question. I suppose I could call it if I remember my name. It's N-something. I don't know. Pick a name that starts with Na for the moment I suppose. **

**"****What about Nana? Since you said Na-something." **The Doctor waved the scanner over her, he smirked at her.

**"****I like how that sounds. Hey, did you know that you've really pretty eyes,"** she said, grabbing his face and staring into them. **"Pretty but sad and old."**

He stared into her pale blue eyes. Her dark lashes framing her eyes seemed bigger. Her eyes too had seen conflict, a lot of conflict. If anything, she hadn't run from the battlefield. She wasn't the coward like the Master had been who ran from the battlefield.

Leaning her head against his, she could feel his mind beneath the barriers that he had built over the years. **"You've forgotten. You've built this wall around you so tightly. It was difficult to find you."**

**"****F-Find me?"** He blushed at bit as he felt her mind leaning close to his. It had been such a long time since someone, anyone had been able to do that with him. He had forgotten how intimate it felt when someone with telepathic abilities did that to him as well. The last time it had been was with Jeanne-Antoinette but even then, it was nothing compared to his. Their minds pressed against each other, the ability to feel their surface thoughts and their emotions. The girl's surface thoughts were all over the place. Definitely temporal amnesia, those were always a pain.

**"****I heard you. I remember. I remember. I remember. I remember. Hearing you. Over and over. Calling out."**

**"****I did?"**

**"****You were crying. So I came."**

She pulled him close. _'To tell you, you are not alone.'_

The unbidden memory of the Time Lord consciousness surfaced, the cacophony of the muted conversations always somewhere in the back of the mind then the silence, the never-ending, mind-numbing silence. It was all gone. The silence stayed on, but now he could feel her and he wasn't the last Time Lord left. She brushed the tear that fell from his eye unbidden.

'_Hello Doctor.'_

**A/N: I always thought of the concept that the Doctor was the last Time-lord a bit absurd. I'm sure that there would always be the cowards, the parents who cherish the very young that are willing to send them off to somewhere "safer", I'm even sure the government would have at least considered sending the very young to somewhere safe during the later stages of war. Then again, the War did lasted at least 400 years. By then, any very young would have been considered "sufficiently old enough" to participate in the war. Did they train the young as fast as possible to put guns in their hands? I thought of these as I was writing the story. Anything's plausible, so then what about when before the Doctor activating the Moment. It's time-locked and etc etc. Considered all these and would factor all these in the story.**


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Gallifreyan: "**Hello**."

Telepathy: '_Hello.'_

-x-x-x-x-x-x-

It's a wonderful feeling when you've given up thinking anyone else had survived only to find another one had, another who could completely relate to you. His other companions knew what Daleks were, but they never really saw the real might of the Daleks. They had seen the scavengers, the mad, the hybrids and had feared those for the Doctor himself had feared them. It seemed natural to them to fear something that made the Doctor's blood run cold. Truth to be told, had anyone shown a picture of the Daleks to the Doctor without telling him anything about them, he would have scoffed at the picture and called them trash bins or something along the lines. Even the cybermen looked more menacing than those funny looking trash bins. Getting upgraded was something more 'fearsome' than these trash bins with funny voices. The Doctor often reminded himself that this reaction he had to Daleks was often a conditioned response to the time he spent fighting them. While he had comparatively less time fighting them than this girl that was now sleeping in the bed, he had a penchant of finding trouble or trouble had a penchant of finding him, which ever anyone preferred to think otherwise. It was after all rather true. Even with his best efforts, he was often placed in situations that were far less optimal than anyone would have wanted to be placed regularly – finding himself alone with ten daleks on the ground, finding himself against a small fleet of daleks with only the Tardis he owned and that someone's Tardis he once treasured dearly, the list goes on.

She had tried to tell him as much as she could remember and it was very little. She remembered the never-ending war and she was from a Warrior's house so that made her one of the first few that were sent out as the frontline. Her HADS had gone off in battle then something had happened. She didn't remember what only that she felt the compulsion to work on her Tardis because it was the last piece of Gallifrey. Her Tardis must have boosted her senses which allowed her to hear him during her several of her _naps_ under the Tardis. She had said _naps_ but it didn't take much for the Doctor to pick up that she really meant that she had driven her body to the point where it shut itself off to catch up on all the lost sleep. For any Time Lord to be able to drive their bodies to do that meant that they must have at least not slept a wink for over two months, the Doctor knew that all too well having succumbed to that previously.

The Doctor sat stiffly on the chair by the bed. He watched her chest rise and fall. Four hours later and he was unable to bring himself to believe that someone had survived the Time War. He could feel her mental presence, what a glorious feeling it was. He was fearful that it was all a terrible hallucination and that the terribly boring boredom has finally terrified his mind into hallucinating him someone to keep him company. Of course, he was also contemplating how he was going to tell her about how the Time War ended. She had not gotten around asking any questions due to the regeneration sleep – praise the regeneration sleep. He owed her the truth. He owed himself to tell any survivors the truth. He also feared the Judgement that would change the way she looked at him. The Master had been different. He had fled from battle and hid himself from it at the end of the universe. He was also the Doctor's best friend. It was difficult to gauge what the reaction would be when the Doctor told her what had happened. The Doctor was not sure he would be able to bear it if she would just walk out his Tardis and never spoke to him again. Or even stare at him with hateful eyes. Would she try to kill him? Even hundreds of years later, he still had nightmares of that time to time. The Doctor twiddled his thumbs. His lips pressed thinly. There really wasn't much of a reason for him to creepily watch her sleep, he supposed. Yes, creepy would definitely be the word anyone would use if they woke up to a stranger staring down at them. He could do with a cup of tea and some jelly babies then maybe he would put the bottom of Tardis to some respectable looking state. That sounded like a fine plan.

The Doctor having a plan, who would have ever considered this day to be happening?

-x-x-x-x-x-x-

The Tardis was burning. She had withstood 30 daleks beams but apparently the last one was out to disarm their Force-field.

**"****Tell me you can fix it!" **Luton yelled to her who was below the Tardis. It was not a question.

**"****I can fix it! Of course I can fix it. But I need eight hours to fix it."**

Luton frowned at her statement. It was a decision that would affect all of them. His voice was flat when he called out his next orders.

**"****Set course for the Artron Cannon. Dead straight ahead."**

**"****What?"** The sound of the other 3 yelled out. **"What about-"**

**"****The rest of the Euler 13 Century has been decimated. We're the last ones left. We were tasked on handling this side. If we lose this side, the Daleks will be able to break in. Anestes, tell the remaining to blink."**

They fell into their roles, preparing for the canon. The tension was so thick that you could cut it with a knife as Chesryl began to calculate for the Artron Cannon. **"Artron Cannon in 3. 2. 1."**

The duo pushed the buttons, activating the Tardis blink. The Tardis flickered out and back a spilt second after the Artron Cannon detonated. 80% of the Daleks had been destroyed. With the Vortex Lance, Anestes made short work of the rest. Navi was still doing her best to fix their force field when they returned to the city. By the time she left, she had fixed enough so the Tardis could repair the rest of it. The Tardis could probably have fixed all of it herself, but there were things that even Navi wanted to fix herself. Intricate things and little mods she had made over the years.

The other three had been called into a briefing that was on-going and she supposed it was time for her to appear. She was not really keen on it. Pausing at the window, she took in the dark skies and shining moons. The dark red grass seemed to wave in the dry wind. Outside was still seemed so peaceful that it made the war just above in the space appear like a dream. She could see the silver leaved trees glinting as the wind blew across the fields. However in the city, a penumbra of despair had settled over the city with them bringing the news of their century wiped out. Their century had lasted the longest out in the front lines, holding the brink of wars to the outermost edges of Gallifrey's influence. It was the same wind that blew, but in here, Navi was beginning to smell the cusp of fear from even the non-warrior and lower Houses.

The war never gave the impression to normal Gallifreyans that it was ever real. It was only bits of conversations and parts of news that were vague. Only the Warrior Houses had been called to arms and only the Council Houses had been active in decisions related to the war.

**"****Na- they're re-allocating us to Dirac 5 Century."**

Navi turned to the voice. Lost in her thoughts, she had not realized the meeting had ended and her other 3 crew had left the room and joined her beside the glass observatory.

**"****Dirac 5 Century. Where are they at?"**

**"****30852/8940by42,751/acorn, 89712/860"**

**"****Far."** She did not need to continue her unspoken thoughts for all 4 of them knew what it implied. They were intelligent enough to guess the Council's _attempts._ It did hurt and none of them could fault the Council. They had survived the frontlines for 170 years, 3 months and 507 hours if you counted linearly. It was difficult to keep track of time when you were popping back and forth in time. There was only 1,007 other Tardises out there that had achieved such a record. 1,007 sounds like a lot of Tardises, but this pale in comparison to how many had been sent out. Sent out into the really bad frontlines where very few had returned from and they had returned each time. All of them had unwittingly become a beacon of hope and in a vague sense, war heroes. Dirac 5 Century was no different. Yet another hopeless battlefield, another frontline.

**"****Maya will need at least 1 hour. Then I'll need to upgrade some parts. There are some new Type 104 parts that may be compatible."**

**"****Anything we may need to learn?"**

Navi shook her head. She had picked out parts of the 104 and 105 to add them on, but she hadn't just been thinking of the newer types. The older types had several good parts that had been phased out. She had picked them out piece by piece each time they had returned to the Tardis's farms. No one would notice if two or three pieces went missing. She was quite certain that the Tardis's mechanics, at least the ones in this city, even knew of her _borrowing_ them. They seemed rather conveniently placed nearby each time she had landed. Navi wasn't going to question. If the shoe fit, she would take it.

** "****How long until we have to leave?"**

They travelled by Tardis obviously. They could be anywhere in the universe on time. But that wasn't the real question. Navi was on board not just as a mechanic and a pilot, she was mildly inspired. She saw the future timelines that was directly 15 minutes and 20 seconds ahead. Too weak for anything big and momentous but real combat, it was a godsend.

**"****About now."** She nodded at the city. **"Or stay and we'll need some guns. If we leave now, we'll go directly into combat as well. 3 fleets. 54 Daleks."**

The three of them exchanged looks. Physical combat was not their forte. Anestes was the one of the best in Tardis lance cannon combat, Chesryl and Navi was the best in evading and blinking in and out. To leave the city would be to leave it almost defenceless. The warrior houses had sent out all their members. This was a remote city far North of capital, it was hardly expected to be one that would be attacked.

**"****11 minutes and 9 seconds."**

Luton had spun around, calling the guards to arms.

Navi spun around. The scene was different now. The ground splotched and crunched beneath her feet. She ran. Her hearts were beating loudly in her ears. Her lungs were burning. Her respiratory bypass was about to end.

_4_

She leapt out.

_3_

Not bothering to aim, she pulled the trigger.

_2_

Ducking, she rolled.

1

She pulled the trigger as soon as she reached the other side, not bothering to even aim. She had seen it. The dalek that was aiming for one of the citizens would die. He was an important man. Her foresight had impressed it upon her even if she couldn't see it completely. The man turned to look at her. Dressed in green velvet with the curliest hair she seen in the last 50 decades. He opened his mouth, calling out possibly. He reached out to her. Pointing.

0

A shock ripped through her. She could see the fire leaping on her arms. Anestes and Luton were shooting at the Daleks behind her. Chesryl crouched beside her. His arms enveloping her, he kissed her hair with a sob as it got caught in his throat on the way up. The man she saved was nowhere to be seen.

'_Goodbye,' _Chesryl traced down her face and moved away. There were no tears in his eyes. Warrior Houses don't cry.

She gave a weak smile before letting the glow encompass her lanky body. How it burnt.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-

Navi woke up with a word on her lips. The only word she remembered from the dream she just had.

_Maya._

It was important. Why? She didn't know. Pacing up and down the Zero room where she had been placed after falling asleep in the med bay by the Doctor probably. How did she look? Mirror!

She turned around and stalked towards the mirror that was in the corner of the room. She was taller than her previous regeneration. Her previous regeneration was more _warrior_ like, small with long legs and well built muscles. At least she believed she was, she hadn't remembered her previous regeneration much. This one seemed the opposite of her vague memories. Her limbs were slender and more graceful. Her face was more youthful. She didn't have much of a chest but at least she had some curves down her body. Some. Dark brown hair that almost seemed black with pale blue eyes. What a shocking contrast. It could have been worse. Navi turned away from the mirror, done with her scrutiny. She still had 6 hours and 13 minutes before her regeneration cycle ended. It wasn't a bad regeneration. Wouldn't be bad.

Sticking her head out, she decided to find the Doctor and maybe borrow some clothes. Her robe was a bit too short for her. She looked down at it. A blue robe. Was she mourning for someone, she wondered as she went in search for the Doctor.

The Doctor was adjusting some of the couplets when he heard her footsteps walking down the console floor.

** "****Doctor?" **

He wasn't sure what made him choose not to speak out. He wasn't exactly hiding. All she had to do was look down and see him sitting under the Tardis fixing the stray wires. He opened his mouth to reply her but stopped when she began to mutter to herself.

**"****Blue robe. I was mourning for someone, something. Yes. The silence. The silence in my head. Was I mourning for that? No. I don't think so. Blue Box. You brought me here. I heard you. I saw you in my previous dreams, memories. I don't know. I saw the Doctor in the City. I recognize him as the Doctor. Why? He's not the Doctor now. Past? Future? I don't know. I see Ces- Chess? Chessy, Chesty, Chesin? He's not what I remember either. It's weird. I keep seeing things. Yes, yes, yes. That's why Maya dumped me. I think she dumped me. Maya. Maya, Maya, Maya, Maya, Maya, Maya, Maya, Maya, Maya. Who is she? My mind keeps repeating that word, name. Name. My name is- What is my name? Na- Nadia, Nace, Nacio, Nada, Narnia, Nadie, Naddy, Naji, Nabi, Nadiya. Na, na ,na. Oh Rassilon. I'm going crazy aren't I?"**

He really wasn't hiding on purpose. The Doctor had assumed that if he stayed there quietly enough, she might go away. However after overhearing her conversation with his Tardis he began to wonder if she had been one of the Time Lords that had started to go crazy. It was possible. She mentioned that she had _jumped_ and somehow was able to escape the Time Lock that he had activated but she had seen and participated much of the carnage. It was not too far-fetched to have assumed that she had been one of the Time Lords that had been slowly going crazy. If his Tardis knew, why had she brought the Time Lady here?

Above, the Time Lady had sunk into the jump chair.

**"****Doctor. You are here, aren't you?"**

The Doctor had almost smacked his head against the grille when she said that.

**"****I- I- I-"**

She waved his attempts to find a plausible excuse.

**"****I'm not angry or anything you think I am. A bit embarrassed that's all."**

**"****You still don't remember your name?"**

She shook her head. **"I suppose you could call me Nana. Because that's all I remember of my name."**

The Doctor nodded. He watched her twirl her black hair round her finger. She was trembling though she seemed to try to school herself as she saw him come up the stairs.

**"****Nana, are you scared of me?" **The Doctor had been rather infamous after all. Apparently some of the parents back on Gallifrey had used him as a prime example if they didn't pay attention in class or listen to their elders. **"There's no reason to be scared of me. I know they said I'm a bit mad, but everyone's a bit mad, right?"** He tried a large fake grin.

**"****No I'm not. Not scared of you I mean."**

**"****Then are you cold? Because only people only tremble when they're cold or scared. It has to be either or. So which is it?"**

**"****Aren't you going to ask?"**

**"****Ask?" **He gave her a quizzical look. **"What should I ask?"**

**"****Am I crazy?"**

**"****Are you?"**

**"****No."**

**"****Then that's good! Do you want me to ask about what I overheard? I thought it was just rambling. I ramble a lot too, most of the time. Actually all the time. It gets sort of empty here when there's no one around. Which reminds me, I'm supposed to pick up a companion. I'm a bit behind my schedule,"** He pulls out the scheduler. ** "There is. Right here! Right after- Tardis, I don't remember scheduling an overhaul-"**

The lights blinked and the Tardis seemed to hum in laughter at him. The Doctor bickered a bit at the Tardis before remembering he had a Time Lady in the Tardis. Gallifreyans were often quick to discredit that Tardises that acted too much like a _real being_. They were only _semi-sentient_, especially for such _models._

**_"_****Er- " **He scratched his cheek, unsure what to say.

**"****That's it? You're going to take my word for the truth? You're not going to ask about anything you heard?"**

He paused at her question. He had assumed she would have scoffed at his antics or treating the Tardis as something you could hold conversations with. Oh this was very interesting.

**"****I'm actually pretty curious. Who is Maya? When did you see me? Who else do you remember? And you said the Tardis brought you here. What do you mean by that?"**

**"****I don't remember Maya. Just that she's incredibly important to me. Don't remember what happened either. I remember seeing you in the City. The buildings fell. I saw you die. So much blood. I saw everyone dying. Dying, dying, dying, dying." **She repeated the last one over and over, staring into her hands.

The Doctor reached for her hand. Squeezing her hand, he projected comfort and sympathy to her. Words were inadequate. He knew that feeling. Her mind was caught in a memory. It didn't help that she had temporal amnesia where it looped memories or even a single moment of time like some broken record. It was usually best to sleep it off but he knew that even in sleep, the memories came for you and in sleep you were utterly and hopelessly useless in breaking from it. Bad memories were the worst. She would have had enough bad memories from all the fighting during the Time War.

**"****It's just a memory," **he murmured. **"Can you remember your childhood? What was your childhood like?"**

Her hands were trembling less as her distraught features drifted into something less distraught and more thoughtful. The Doctor was walking on a fine line here. He had hoped the very least her childhood hadn't been something bad. Most Gallifreyans learnt quickly to school their feelings. Some Houses did not treat their families very well.

**"****I lived close to the city. We had a tree in the garden that bore fruits. I used to climb it. Our house was beautiful and very big. I had many cousins. 124 of them. I was on the younger side."**

The Doctor stiffened at her words. On Gallifrey, only Warrior Houses were allotted that many cousins. How funny it was to meet a Warrior House Gallifreyan. Most of them had died out in the war for they were the first ones sent out. They were also the most likely to have gone crazy. The Doctor gazed at her guardedly, the memories of Rassilon near the end of the war surfaced. Drawing his hand back quickly, he gave a hasty mental check at his shields. He drew a quick side-glance at her. She looked wistfully, probably at her childhood memories. He gave a mental breath of relief, making a note to make sure his shields were doubly strong. With the long periods of very few telepathic practice and only with the very few aliens and the Tardis to use on, the Doctor found his skill was very much wanting. He used to be very good. He looked felt almost melancholic upon remembering how his fourth regeneration could even project his mind over long distances.

He looked down at his console table. Usually this was where he'd go off for an adventure or drift somewhere aimlessly, pick up a new hobby or something. Was she up to adventuring?

"Right! Allons-y!"

He typed in the coordinates and set the Tardis off to pick up Donna. He flashed a generous amount of white teeth at the fellow Time Lord

"**Just gonna pick up a companion!" **He laughed as he swung through the doors calling for Donna.

"Donna! Are you ready to go?!" The Doctor paused in mid-step as his feet sloshed in what seemed to be ankle deep mud. He checked his wrist watch and darted back into the Tardis with a squelch and a splot.

"No. The time and coordinates are most definitely correct." He leaned out of the door again. Rain was pouring down in some kind of forest - forest with concrete in them. This time he stuck his tongue out, catching several drops of rain onto his tongue. He smacked it, tasting it with a contemplative expression. Something was wrong.

"Donna?" he called out, his feet squelched loudly as he ran out of the Tardis. He couldn't really call it running when the mud was thick and almost ate his shoes several times.

_More like just ate my shoe._

The Doctor corrected himself after losing the same right shoe twice and finally giving up to squish with one shoe less. The entire landscape of Chiswick had changed to one with forest.

"Blimey. What happened?"

He jerked forward, startled as a hard smack on the back of his head followed by a second one on the side.

"It's called a re-forestration you bloody idiot! Where have you been!?"

The Doctor stared wide eyed at the raincoat wearing, ginger haired and very angry lady that had appeared behind him.

"I- I- You asked me to come back in a week," he replied weakly.

"No Dumbo! It's been six months! Six bloody months!" She threw the purple umbrella at him with a glare.

"Six? That can't be right? No- wait." He pursed his lips and then gestured at the trees. "I don't remember Chiswick being this- Foresty."

He pulled out his screwdriver and scanned the surrounding areas. There was nothing particularly special about the trees. They were just trees. Neither was there anything special with the mud or the rain. As far as the scans were, everything was a normal forest in a twenty-first century Earth.

"What happened?" Scratching a sideburn, he frowned at the scans then at the surroundings.

"They all just sprouted into fully grown trees overnight a week ago. It's just Chiswick though."

Donna opened the door to what used to be her house. The trees had avoided the windows and the doors, grown up the walls and spread their branches out wide when they reached the roof. The buildings were still structurally sound, or as sound as it could be with trees enveloping the buildings. He crouched down, swiping a bit of the mud on his finger.

"Yeuck!" He spat out the mud that he had licked. "Yes. Just mud."

"That's just gross." Donna made a face and gestured to the open door. "You coming in, Spaceman?"

"Yes. But why is there so much mud? It ate my shoe! How can there be so much mud that it ate my shoe?! And can you even call this rain!? I've seen less _rain_ in the monsoon seasons in Asia!"

**"****Doctor?"** Nana was staring at him with a raincoat and his lost right shoe in her other hand.

**"****Ah Nana! Sorry, was distracted."** He turned to Donna who stood gawking at Nana. "Donna, this is Nana-"

That was all he got out of his mouth before she smacked him hard on the head again. "You forgot about me didn't you!?"

"Ow!" He rubbed his head. "I didn't! Can we continue this conversation somewhere else less wet first?" He motioned at the mud then the rain.

The trio were nursing a mug of hot tea after hanging up with wet clothes and wiped down as much as they could. It was drier inside, but still very wet. It seemed like the citizens of Chiswick or the very least Donna's house had given up on keeping the floor sparkling clean and gone with the not wallowing in mud clean.

"So how did you meet the Doctor?"

Nana gave her a small smile. "**I fell-**" she stopped in mid-sentence, realizing she was speaking in Gallifreyan.

"I fell out of the sky and into the Tardis," she said slowly, making sure to pronounce the words properly. Earth's English was sharp and grating unlike Gallifreyan, it made her tongue roll oddly as she spoke it.

"Good Lord. That must have hurt! Thank goodness Spaceman here was there or you'd have died."

Nana shrugged. She didn't feel like fully explaining what had happened or her physiology. Though to be honest, the whole 'falling from the sky' was rather hazy at best.

"I don't remember much of it," she replied at last, taking a slow sip. This _tea_ was good. She hoped the Doctor had some in the Tardis.

"I was just drinking my tea over the rainforests when she came smacking into the Tardis," he answered. He hadn't gotten around to telling Nana what happened at the end of the Time War. He was quite certain that if he mentioned that Nana was a Time Lord as well, Donna might accidentally mention the last time lord thing. Might be a very bad idea.

**Author's Note:** Okay. So I didn't really think through this. I got Giant trees in Chiswick, mud that's ankle deep and rain that pours non-stop. It kinda went from rainbow dogs to trees. Not sure how that happened but I sort of like how it goes. Next chapter will have more of Luton and Chesryl. Luton is a canon character, I sort of like picking up really remote canon characters and build around them. There will be a few more canon characters being introduced; I suppose it's probably 'easter eggs' for anyone who bothered watching Classic Who and/or reading the novels/comics. Nana/Navi and Chesryl is OC though. Some might be wondering when exactly is this occurring, but I always thought time in the Tardis is quite splotchy. I'm sure most of the companions didn't stay on all the time, so I created a gap where Donna went home for awhile for a cup of tea with her granddad. If I had to define exactly where this would be, it would be in-between the episode Doctor's Daughter and Unicorn and the Wasp. I plan to have them go on a few more adventures before tackling Silence in the Library. Navi and River meets! Exciting! Got things planned out for it.


End file.
